April 26, 2007

One Man's Decision Whether To Have An Abortion

Unlike DBB, I am a religious guy. But like DBB, though, I think a lot of the time I've mentally sidestepped the political questions surrounding abortion, falling back on my own, personal lack of a uterus, and because they've been abstractions that didn't concern me. Nine weeks into his wife's second pregnancy, however, DBB found himself in a situation that had been inconceivable to that point, definitely no pun intended:

Nothing is stopping the bleeding. There seems to be nothing they can do. They talk about trying some drugs, but then they decide things are going too fast to give time to let them work. So that leaves only surgery as a possibility. Surgery means hosing her out. It means killing the baby. So obviously, we look into other options. Only now, my wife is so out of it, from blood loss, from the painkillers, that the doctor said she is no longer able to legally consent. Now I'm handed a clipboard. On it is consent to basically give my wife an abortion and kill our future child. And it is all on me, my decision, mine alone. Something I never thought I'd ever face, ever have to deal with. Made worse by being a decision of either kill the baby or potentially watch both my wife and the baby die.